Facebook Thinks It Found the 'Smoking Gun' to Disprove Ceglia

But Zuckerberg's lawyers won't say what that is, exactly

The never-ending court battle between Mark Zuckerberg and the guy who wasn't in The Social Network took a curious turn yesterday. Facebook's lawyers want everyone to know that they've got "smoking gun" proof that former wood-pellet salesman Paul Ceglia fabricated evidence to make the claim he's entitled to half of the social-networking site, reported Bloomberg. The lawyers, citing a need for confidentiality, don't say exactly what that is:

"Defendants have uncovered smoking-gun evidence that the purported contract at the heart of this case is a fabrication," Facebook said in its court filing late yesterday. In a publicly filed version of the motion papers, Facebook, citing a confidentiality order in the case, didn’t identify the evidence it says was "embedded in the electronic data on Ceglia’s computer."

Ceglia had been previously ordered by a Buffalo, New York judge to "let Facebook run forensic tests on his computers, hard drives and electronic storage media," notes Bloomberg. The strident tone of Zuckerberg's company lawyers is in keeping with their previous statements: they wrote in June "this entire lawsuit is a fraud" and claimed Ceglia forged documents. In May, Facebook issued a statement calling him a "scam artist."